Forget millennials, forget Gen Z… In fact, let’s forget generational marketing altogether

I recently read an article titled, something along the lines of, “Forget Gen Z, marketers need to set their sights on Gen Alpha” and it got me thinking just how useless it is to think in terms of generations. But where has this concept of generational marketing come from?

It was the massive social change of the 1940s that saw less young people going out to work and led to the beginning of what was dubbed ‘youth culture’. This meant there was suddenly a new generation of consumers that brands could sell to, an attractive proposition indeed. But as this generation moved into a different life stage, marketers found themselves needing a new generation to sell to and with it the need to redefine this generation every fifteen or so years.

Thus the notion of generational marketing was born. It may have served a purpose at the time but segmentation like this nowadays just feels kinda lazy.